


Connections

by Lesca Fenix (lescafenix)



Category: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lescafenix/pseuds/Lesca%20Fenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After "The Future is Hope" Paradox Ending, Noel and Hope talk about where they go next and how one moves on from being left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connections

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chichirinoda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chichirinoda/gifts).



> Prompt: Hope being badass and adult and still adorable, perhaps? Honestly, I would be happy with just about anything. This has probably been done to death, but I do love that one possible ending where Noel is left behind with Hope and Snow and Serah head off to complete the adventure. Perhaps something between the two of them, and how they feel about being left behind to hold down the fort, would be interesting. Slash is definitely allowed, too.

"Wow. That was... unexpected." Noel scratched the back of his neck as he watched the motorcycle bearing Snow and Serah streak off into the afternoon sky. Everything had happened so quickly--Snow had appeared and revealed Alyssa's tampering with the artefact that would have sent him and Serah into a trap set by Caius, Alyssa had been arrested and led to the brig, and he was left here in this place with a man he'd barely met. 

"That's Snow for you," Hope said wryly, with a shake of his head.

"I wasn't too impressed with him when Serah and I first met him," Noel said as he turned to follow Hope back into the Academy Headquarters.

"He grows on you," Hope said over his shoulder. Then, after a beat, "Or, he doesn't."

Noel laughed. Hope had a dry humor that often brought a smile to his face. It reminded him of Caius--the only person Noel had ever met who could make a weather report into a sardonic statement. As he watched Hope adjust the controls at his console, he let his annoyance at Snow's interruption fade in favor of dealing with the issue at hand. "So what now? Wait for Snow and Serah to do whatever it is Snow said they had to do? How do we even know what that is, or if they've done it?"

Hope turned around. "We don't," he said. "When you and Serah left us the first time, we had to leave that part of the mission to you and accept there was nothing we could do about it, aside from watch for signs that the timeline had perhaps been altered. No real difference from what we do on a day-to-day basis."

"Except now we know someone's trying to kill you," Noel added. 

"Well, yes. There is that," Hope said, tilting his head as he considered it for a moment. He then shook his head and turned back to the control panel.

"Hey, hang on! Don't you think that needs a bit more than 'Oh yeah, that?'" Noel asked, stepping forward and gripping Hope's bicep. "We don't know who this is, or when specifically they're going to hit, and we need to plan!" Hope's laconic attitude toward his apparent impending death baffled Noel. Why go through all this trouble to get this far ahead only to show complete apathy in the face of a direct threat?

Hope looked down at Noel's hand, then placed his hand over it for a moment. "No, I don't," he said. 

Noel met Hope's gaze, which reminded him of the sky reflected on the frozen lakes of home in the winter: stark and futureless. Noel swore he could see the same bleakness there, and it made his stomach hurt. Where was the Hope they'd met in Yaschas Massif? Had Alyssa's betrayal finally broken him? Noel dropped his hand and turned to leave, but stopped when Hope gripped his forearm. He turned to speak once more, but was silenced by Hope's lingering stare. The bleakness was still there, but in it glinted something else, something that made Noel's breath catch in the back of his throat. He quickly pulled away and turned to return to the guest quarters he and Serah had been assigned. He didn't know how to protect someone who didn't want to be protected. And if he couldn't hold up his end of things, then it might not matter what Snow and Serah accomplished.

* * *

"No! No! Come back!" Noel gasped in horror as Hope slipped beneath the clear, still waters of the lake he'd grown up near. Hope thrashed and struggled toward the surface, eyes wide in horror, but he only sank further. "Hope!" Noel screamed, yanking off his shirt to dive into the water. However, he crashed face-first into solid ice. The lake was frozen over, and he was staring face-to-face with Hope, who was trapped beneath the surface. "Hope!" he screamed, pounding on the ice. "Hope!"

"Noel?"

Noel startled when he heard Hope's voice call his name, followed by muffled knocking. For a brief moment, he thought Hope was calling to him from beneath the ice, but then he opened his eyes, realizing he had fallen asleep on the all-too-comfortable guest bed provided by the Academy. He tumbled to his feet and opened the door. "Hey."

Hope's features seemed softer than when Noel had left him in the control room. He glanced down, and Noel frowned.

"Something on your mind?" Noel asked.

"I want to show you something," Hope replied, his words still curt and direct, but the edge gone from his voice, replaced almost by a strange vulnerability.

"All right," Noel said, stepping out and following Hope down through a lift he hadn't been in before. Hope inserted a key card and pressed a couple buttons. They traveled in silence for several minutes, up, up, up higher and higher until they reached a floor marked 'A'.

When the doors opened, Noel gasped. He was immediately reminded of the Sunleth Waterscape, with its lush greenery, flans, and annoying wanna-be heroes. After the cold, technological architecture of Academia, this was a welcome change. "Wow," he gasped, looking around. A hummingbird flitted by, poking at blossoms on a tree, and to Noel's surprise, a gentle breeze rustled through the leaves. "Are we still inside?" Noel asked.

"Yes. We're in the Academy's Arboretum," Hope said, stepping onto the path. "This was one of the first places they showed me when I woke up here. They grow food for the city in these arboretums on the tops of buildings and on the outskirts of the city. I'd come up here when I felt homesick, or overwhelmed. A tree's a tree, you know? You get deep enough into this place, and you forget what city you're in, or what year."

Noel looked around, as the branches of the trees formed a canopy above them, and breathed deeply of the damp, lush-smelling air. "I'd forgotten what trees smelled like until I started traveling through the Gates. It's kind of funny how easy you start forgetting things once they're gone." He trailed off as he walked with Hope, watching as the other man paused at an intersection of a smaller path and motioned down it.

"This way," Hope said, walking a small distance, then disappearing as he crouched down. Noel followed, and found Hope gathering strawberries from a hidden patch within the foliage. "Hungry?" He looked up, and the light that Noel had missed before was back.

"Thanks," Noel said, holding out his hand to receive the berries. The first bite was incredibly sweet and juicy, and Noel couldn't stifle a groan of pleasure.

"You took the words out of my mouth," Hope laughed, then took a bite of his own berry. He chewed silently for a moment, and Noel had a feeling there was something else on his mind. He popped another berry into his mouth and waited, until Hope spoke again. "Nobody else comes up here," Hope finally said. "Nobody except the workers, who go home at the end of the day shift. Surveillance equipment can't monitor audio frequencies due to the sounds of the flora and fauna." He turned fully to Noel. "I couldn't let anyone down there know I was concerned about any possible assassination attempt. We don't want to scare the enemy into changing whatever plans they already have--we need to find out what it is. We have time."

"Oh. Wow," Noel said, giving an embarrassed laugh. "I'd thought maybe with Serah gone, and after what Alyssa did-- you know, being alone, it does something to you." Noel's voice dropped off, the words surprisingly difficult to get out. He remembered how he felt after Yeul had died. The first thing he wanted, more than anything, was to die too. He was terrified. He didn't want to live alone. Even when Etro had seen fit to shine her divine light upon him, Noel still wasn't sure he wanted to continue living in a world without anything he knew and loved. Even now, he stil struggled with those thoughts. He had assumed--or maybe had hoped--that Hope had felt the same. Maybe someone else understood how that felt. Serah didn't, not completely. She had Snow, somewhere, and the makeshift-family that was NORA.

Hope smiled a little, glancing shyly through the fringe of blonde hair that barely hung into his eyes. "I've been there before, you know," he said. "Alone, I mean. When my mom died, I was left with Lightning, Snow, Fang, Vanille--of course, I didn't know any of them. All I could focus on was what I'd lost, what I'd never have again. It consumed me. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. Sometimes I'd just-- cry, because I didn't know what else to do." He looked fully at Noel, with a chuckle. "I was a kid, then."

"That must have been hard," Noel said, taking in Hope's story. He had no idea that Hope had lost his family as well. "To be alone at that young of an age."

"I was fortunate. I found my father alive, eventually. But he and I were never close. It was the bonds I'd formed with Lightning and the others that helped me get through that ordeal, and helped me grow up into the person I became. I learned that even losing the bonds I cherished the most didn't mean I couldn't form even more special bonds in the future." Hope's voice trailed off.

"Alyssa?" Noel asked quietly. He didn't really know the full scope of Hope's relationship with Alyssa, but it seemed right to ask.

Hope laughed again at that. "Alyssa was an important constant for me," he confessed. "From an early time at the Academy, she was just... _there_. In many ways, like my mom, I just took her for granted." His expression grew serious then. "Another important lesson about relationships, I suppose. If you don't watch them, tend to them, things can happen that you can't possibly anticipate."

"You lose them." Noel then thought of Caius -- and Alyssa. "Or the people become something you never knew they could."

Hope gave another nod, then rose to his feet to continue their walk. Noel walked at his side this time, glancing over at him with the occasional small smile. His face felt hot, and his heart was beating rapidly. "I had no idea we had so much in common," he said.

"Nor did I," Hope said, meeting his gaze once more, and holding it. "Can I tell you something, though?"

"Sure," Noel said, and he realized they'd both stopped still. Hope's eyes were no longer that frozen, icy lake, but a clear stream, inviting and full of life.

"It made the decision to travel here, knowing I wouldn't be able to go back, easier. Believing that you and Serah would be here too, and hoping that maybe--maybe there would be more new connections. Every time I've had to give something up, I've gotten something so much better from it. I just had a feeling." Hope finally broke the gaze and looked down, and Noel could see his cheeks were flushed. "Hardly a rational, scientific decision, I know."

"The most powerful decisions never are," Noel said, his heart feeling as though it were going to hammer out of his chest. Suddenly he wasn't so angry at Snow's rash, gut decision. Maybe things were falling into place just as the Goddess had intended.


End file.
